Process Intensification Alternatives in the DME Production

Abstract

The increasing demand for dimethyl ether (DME) requires novel technological solutions able to overcome the drawback of energy intensive distillation steps, and to reduce the overall costs of the current process. This study provides a brief overview of process intensification alternatives for the DME production based on dividing-wall column (DWC) technology and reactive distillation (RD). Rigorous simulations were performed in AspenTech Aspen Plus, where all alternatives based on DWC, RD and R-DWC, were optimized using sequential quadratic programming (SQP). The newly proposed processes allow significant energy savings, while using less equipment units and simplifying the overall process operation.